3RCC activities & 3Rs resources

3RCC activities

The Swiss 3R Competence Centre funds research projects that have a clear impact on the replacement, reduction and refinement of animal experimentation and bring scientific and ethical benefits as compared to existing methodologies. It also grants yearly awards for key achievements made in Switzerland regarding the implementation of the 3Rs principles in research and/or education.

The 3RCC furthermore monitors progress made regarding the development and the implementation of replacement, reduction and refinement methodologies to animal experimentation in Switzerland. Finally, it provides relevant information on the 3Rs principle to any interested party seeking information on alternative methods to animal experimentation.

3RCC Biostatistician Task Force

The 3RCC is setting up a nationwide biostatistician task force to support researchers in experimental design, data analysis and reporting related to animal experimentation and/or alternatives to animal experimentation. More information.

3RCC Poster Award at LS²

Congratulations to the winners of the 3RCC Poster Award! Tijmen Booij from Nexus Personalized Health Technologies at the ETH Zurich received the prize for the poster of his replacement project, and Katrin Wendrich from the Department of Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Fribourg was awarded for her refinement approach. More information.

Swiss 3RCC 3Rs Award 2019

2 February 2019 — The 3RCC offers an award of CHF 5,000 to scientists who have significantly contributed to the advancement of Replacement, Reduction, Refinement of animal experimentation (the principle of 3Rs) in the area of life sciences. Application deadline: 17 June 2019. More information.

Media release Swiss 3R survey

23 December 2018 — Press release in English, German, French and Italian about a Swiss 3RCC survey conducted among researchers in Switzerland about the application of the 3Rs principle. •Press release in English •Medienmitteilung Deutsch •Communiqué de presse français •Comunicato stampa in Italiano

The culture of care is an important principle that indicates a commitment to improve animal welfare, scientific quality, care of the staff and transparency for the stakeholders. An international culture of care network was established to share examples of activities that improve animal welfare. The network aims to promote a mind-set and behaviour that continuously and proactively works to promote laboratory animal welfare and the 3Rs; to go beyond a culture of compliance, and to include a culture of challenge, i.e., go beyond the accepted. You can find more information on the International Culture of Care Network in the following link: https://norecopa.no/more-resources/culture-of-care

Fetal Calf Serum (FCS, also known as Fetal Bovine Serum, or FBS) is often used as a supplement of cell culture media. However, its use raise both animal welfare and scientific concerns. For this reason, the 3Rs-Centre Utrecht Life Sciences in collaboration with Animal Free Research UK have developed a FCS-free database which provides an overview of existing FCS-free media for a number of cell cultures. More information can be found in the following link: https://fcs-free.org